(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to automated billing systems and, more particularly, to an automated payment system for presenting an electronic invoice to a customer for remote review and payment.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Invoicing and payment collection has always been a very labor intensive and paper intensive process. Typically the process has involved an invoicer, usually a business, who prepares an invoice detailing the goods and services provided and the charges therefor. The invoice is mailed to a customer who verifies the correctness of the invoice and returns a payment coupon of some type along with a paper check to the invoicer. The invoicer then submits the paper check to its bank for payment through, for example, the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. Other similar payment systems include writing a credit card number and endorsing and preauthorization to draft an account on a monthly basis up to preset limits, such as regularly paying utility bills from a checking account.
Attempts have been made to automate this process through the use of third party service providers who receive and transmit between the invoicer and the banks involved electronic information relating to payments due from a customer. Although these systems appear to streamline the process, they, in fact, may add a great deal of complexity and no small amount of expense to the process. Such electronic systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,113, issued to Kight et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,283,829, issued to Anderson et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,501, issued to Lawlor et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,206, issued to Hilt et al., the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
However, paper systems require that the invoice be presented to the customer and, in addition, require that either that the customer present the paper check to the invoicer's bank either directly to the invoicer or indirectly to a lock box before payment is made from the customer's bank to the invoicer's bank.
Moreover, electronic systems require that the invoice be presented to a third party service provider and then to the customer or to the customer's bank and then to the customer and, in addition, require that the customer present the electronic payment back to the third party service provider before payment is made from the customer's bank to the invoicer's bank.
Thus, there exists a need for a simple, straight forward system and method of automated electronic invoicing and payment that directly involves the invoicer and the customer while, at the same time, does not require a third party service provider and can be customized to include pre-approved payments for invoices of a certain type or under a certain dollar threshold.